


Treasure and Bone

by burglebezzlement



Series: Wings over Purgatory [2]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Autumn, Canon-Typical Violence, Earp Homestead, F/F, Found Family, Ghosts, Poker, Psychic Animal Companion, Shorty's, Sisters, Treasure Hunting, Witches, dragon - Freeform, nicole backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-19 05:43:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8192389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement
Summary: Nicole’s been called down to the new Shorty’s twice on complaints from Earp fanatics who assumed Doc and his poker game were just a quaint tourist attraction right up until the minute when he walked off with all their spending money. Unfortunately, Doc’s new plan for making money is even worse.Featuring treasure hunting, moving, Revenants, food, a surprising amount of Doc and Nicole interaction, a dragon named River, and of course WayHaught. Set in the same continuity as Fire and Egg, but can be read as a stand-alone.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to Fire and Egg, in which Nicole and Waverly found a dragon’s egg. If you haven’t read F&E: the dragon’s name is River, she lives with them, and she and Nicole have a limited telepathic bond. There, all caught up! :D

Two things about Shorty’s don’t change: the warm glow in Nicole’s chest when she looks at the place where she met Waverly, and the number of calls to local law enforcement.

Nicole spots Doc when she walks in. He’s over in the corner, at the table he’s staked his claim on, wearing his old-timey clothes. He’s got a pack of cards and a whiskey on the table in front of him.

She slides into the seat across from him. “So you know why I’m here.”

“I have no idea, Officer,” Doc says. He’s got his best innocent expression on.

“I just took a statement from the tourists you fleeced,” Nicole says. “Doc, I’m going to need you to give them their money back.”

Doc takes a sip of his whiskey. “My cards are not marked. You can inspect them for yourself.”

“They didn’t know you were playing for real money.”

“I did nothing illegal, Officer Haught. If they happened to assume that I was part of the decor, well.” He spreads his hands over the cards. 

Nicole sighs. “This is the third time I’ve been down here this month. If you keep doing this, the owners are going to ask you to leave.”

“Why?” Doc tilts his head. “I provide their establishment with a certain level of authenticity.”

“You’re also providing them with bad TripAdvisor reviews.”

Doc stares at her blankly. “To what to you refer?”

“I’m going to need you to give the money back.” Nicole gets up. “Look, you should talk to the new owners. There’s probably some way you can make money off the tourists without having them call me down to Shorty’s.”

“I would never stoop to simple theft.” Doc sounds aghast. “And I am shocked that you would suggest such a thing, Deputy Haught.”

“I meant photo opportunities!” Nicole protests. “Or charging them to play poker against a Doc Holliday impersonator. Or something else legal.”

Doc’s got an excellent poker face, but Nicole can tell he’s confused. “Photo opportunities?”

Nicole gestures to his clothing. “You know, charge them money to take a picture with an authentic Doc Holliday impersonator.”

“But I am the authentic —”

“I know that,” Nicole says. “Look, can you just give the money back? We can talk about the rest of it tonight. Waverly’s making dinner.”

Doc narrows his eyes, but nods. “Fine.”

* * *

Nicole gets back to the Homestead after dark. It’s only September, but the snow’s already started up in the mountains, and it’s chilly when she checks on River. The dragon is warm, still, from her internal fire, but Nicole’s wondering if she and Waverly should be building her some sort of dragon shelter for the winter. Something to keep her out of the wind and the snow that are coming.

River’s grown so much. She doesn’t fit through the door into the house anymore. Nicole spends a few minutes rubbing her head, looking into her eyes and watching the image-stories the dragon sends her about about going hunting with Waverly.

Inside, the Homestead smells like something delicious. Probably something unhealthy, which means Wynonna’s going to love it.

The table’s set and the oven’s on, but Waverly’s not in the kitchen. Nicole finds her in her bedroom, hunched forward over her computer and deep in a badly-scanned manuscript that’s only sort of legible on the screen.

“More deed records?” Nicole asks. Waverly’s got her hair piled up on top of her head, so Nicole leans over and kisses the back of her neck. Waverly shivers.

“I’m glad you’re home,” Waverly says. She turns away from the computer and rubs her eyes before looking up at Nicole. “How was today?”

Nicole sighs. “Doc took advantage of some more tourists down at Shorty’s,” she says. “And Nedley’s got me counting paperclips, because he claims that there could be a Revenant plot to steal office supplies.”

Actually it’s just because Nedley hates doing the annual supply audit, and with Nicole in her half-Black-Badge, half-Sheriff’s-Department position, she’s now senior enough to sign off on the report. And. Well. Nedley _really_ hates counting paperclips.

“I made chicken king ranch casserole.” Waverly gets up from the computer and stretches. A bit of her stomach shows as her sweater rides up, and Nicole’s mouth goes dry.

“It smells amazing,” Nicole says, not looking away from Waverly’s side. Her scar’s still there, but it’s fading into a silvery line against her skin. 

“Yeah?” Waverly looks into the kitchen. “I figured Wynonna might be willing to try it. It’s got corn chips.” 

Nicole leans in. “She’ll love it.”

“Thanks.” Waverly smiles, and then leans up to kiss Nicole.

* * *

The tourist suckers at Shorty’s aren’t Doc’s only potential poker opponents, although Nicole’s got to admit that the numbers of Purgatory locals willing to go up against him are dwindling.

The locals — the non-Revenant locals, that is — all know about Doc’s poker games now. He cozies up to you, maybe throws the first few hands, and then you’re walking away from the game feeling lucky that he let you keep your clothes. He took Champ Hardy for his entire four-wheeler savings, which he had apparently been keeping hidden in the back of his truck. Doc had Champ convinced that he was bluffing, so Champ went out to the truck to grab his money and stay in the hand… only to learn that he shouldn’t have been drawing to an inside straight. Or playing poker with that weird dude who lives out at his ex-girlfriend’s place.

When Doc tells them about it, Waverly seems like she feels sorry for Champ, a little, until Nicole reminds her about some of the things Champ said at the Solstice party.

* * *

Wynonna gets home just as Waverly’s taking the casserole out of the oven.

“Smells good,” she says, slinging Peacemaker down on the table. 

“New recipe.” Waverly sets it down on the table, on a trivet that Gus brought over a few weeks ago after she came for dinner and was horrified by Waverly putting things right on the countertop.

“It does smell delicious,” Doc says, from his place at the table. He takes a pull on his beer.

He’s been deliberately charming since he got in. Nicole’s not sure why. Maybe he’s trying to show that he’s not holding a grudge (which, what the hell — it’s her job to deal with disturbances of the peace, and she’s not going to cut him slack just because he lives in her girlfriend’s barn and they have dinner together most nights).

“I hope it’s spicy enough,” Waverly says. She sets the salad she made down right in front of Wynonna, but Wynonna ignores it, reaching past it to dish herself a portion of the cheesy, chicken and tortilla goodness instead. She takes a bite, closing her eyes, and then gets up to grab a beer and a bottle of hot sauce.

Nicole smiles at Waverly. “If you made it hot enough for Wynonna, the rest of us wouldn’t have anything to eat.”

“You know it,” Wynonna says through a full mouth. She swallows. “So. Any leads?”

Waverly looks down at the casserole while she serves Doc and Nicole and herself. “I wish.”

Nicole shrugs. To nobody’s surprise, the Revenants haven’t been stealing the Purgatory Sheriff’s Department’s paperclips. 

“You should ask me,” Doc says.

He’s smiling like a dragon who’s just cornered her prey. He’s also got a bit of cheese hanging from his mustache, which he doesn’t seem to have noticed.

“A lead?” Wynonna’s sitting up, leaning forward, like staring at Doc with enough intensity will make him tell her faster. “You’ve got something?”

“I believe so,” Doc says, in that cautious way that means he totally thinks he has, but he’s downplaying it for drama. “This afternoon — after Officer Haught so kindly notified me of the concerns of the proprietors of Shorty’s — I was approached by some gentlemen who suggested a poker game. And I do believe they are acquainted with several Revenants I happen to know are also fond of a game of poker.”

“It’s probably a trap.” Waverly looks worried. “It was last time, when the Revenants attacked the Homestead.”

“A possibility,” Doc says. “However. Is it not better to follow the Revenants to this trap, and attempt to track them back to their hiding place?”

Wynonna leans forward, her plate forgotten. “When is this poker game?”

* * *

Wynonna and Dolls put the plan together, with assistance from Waverly and Nicole and a lot of complaints from Doc.

Dolls knows about River — knows that the junior Black Badge deputy and her girlfriend are raising a dragon out at the Earp Homestead.

He doesn’t know the nature of Nicole’s relationship with River. Not officially. Nicole’s still not really that comfortable talking about it, apart from with Waverly. Doc and Wynonna know a little, but not the full version. They don’t know about Nicole’s family history or the fact that her grandparents used to tell her stories about her ancestors, the dragon people.

But Dolls — Nicole watches him planning the operation, and she’s pretty sure he’s figured it out.

Her role, and Waverly’s role, is to hang back from the poker game’s location. They’re in the Jeep — no squad cars tonight — parked off a little dirt side road that leads to a ranch that hasn’t been cultivated in years. River’s stationed up a small rise, keeping her flame hidden. She’s waiting to take off and follow the Revenants from the air. 

The game’s being held at someone’s house, out east of town. It’s after sun-down.

It feels like the dark and the cold start coming early in Purgatory. Nicole’s got her uniform on, but it’s still cold, waiting in Waverly’s Jeep. It wasn’t chosen with stakeouts in mind.

“Here,” Waverly says, draping her oversized scarf over Nicole’s shoulders. “Maybe this will help.”

It doesn’t, not really, but it smells like Waverly and Nicole keeps it on anyway. 

Doc went in an hour ago. Since then, they’ve been watching the road.

Nobody out this way, not in the evening. A few cars drive by, but none of them pause when they drive by the cabin and its lights. 

Waverly shifts in her seat. “What does it look like for River?”

Nicole closes her eyes. She doesn’t need to, but it’s easier when she does. She lets the dragon’s thoughts filter into hers — the view down towards the house, the cars on the road, the Jeep with Nicole and Waverly. She gets a taste of the feeling of cold night air against scales warmed by internal fires. 

River sends Nicole a curious feeling — there’s no words, but Nicole knows she’s wondering why Nicole’s suddenly let their minds move closer than their usual background bond. 

Nicole sends her a picture of Waverly, peering out into the night with human eyes that aren’t properly equipped for it, and River sends back amusement. 

“She’s watching,” Nicole says. “Nobody’s left the house yet.”

Waverly settles back. “She’s got the best eyesight for this.”

They’re quiet for a while, feeling the cool of the night air through the windows. 

“I stopped by my apartment,” Nicole says, finally.

“Yeah?” Waverly turns to look at her. “When are you giving that place up?”

Nicole feels her face flush. Not that Waverly can see it in the dark Jeep. “I wanted to talk to you about that. My lease is up next month.”

Waverly’s quiet for a moment, and then she must smile; Nicole can hear it in her voice. “Officer Haught. Are you asking if you can move in with me?”

“The lease is up,” Nicole says defensively. “I mean… it didn’t make sense before, but with River… it’s not like my building allows dragons.”

“Didn’t make sense? How doesn’t it make sense to move in with the woman you love?” Waverly’s laughing, so Nicole can tell she’s not actually hurt.

“Well, I didn’t want to assume that —” Nicole shakes her head and then leans over the seat to kiss Waverly. “You’re being a jerk.”

“Yeah, probably,” Waverly says, cheerfully. She kisses Nicole again and then sits back. “We should keep watching.”

“River’s going to see before we can,” Nicole says, re-settling the scarf. But Waverly’s right.

“Didn’t want to assume,” Waverly says. She shakes her head. “You do realize you’ve been living with us for months, right?”

“We still need to talk to Wynonna about it.” 

“Are you kidding? Wynonna loves anyone who keeps a gun around and can fight off Revenants. You’re fine.”

“Yeah, but it’s her house too,” Nicole says. And Doc’s barn. Sort of.

“I don’t think that’s going to be —”

River sends an image of a crack of light, opening in the front of the cabin, just as Waverly grabs Nicole’s arm. “Something’s happening,” Waverly says.

As they watch, the cabin door opens, spilling light into the night. They see dark shapes moving.

Through human sight, they can’t see enough to figure out who’s who. Who’s Revenant and who’s human. Nicole’s pretty sure she recognizes Doc, moving with his coiled tension, but the others —

She slips into River’s vision, closing her eyes to sharpen the images.

Five men. Doc, the host, three humans, and one who seems human. Perfectly human. But even if River doesn’t recognize him, Nicole does, from the photos Waverly’s dug up of the Revenants. From Waverly’s murder board down at Black Badge.

“There’s definitely one,” Nicole says, keeping her eyes shut, and Waverly’s on the walkie to Dolls and Wynonna.

“Which one?” Waverly asks.

“The last one. Wearing the fur coat.” Which probably should have been the first tip-off. Most normal humans in Purgatory don’t wear fur. That’s for the Revenants and cult victims and the other beings affected by the weirdness of this place.

Nicole feels River shift, restless, and Nicole sends her a feeling of caution, of waiting. 

Doc looks up into the hills as he talks with the host, and for a moment, Nicole thinks he’s given away their position. But then he looks back toward the house. Even River’s eyesight can’t make out Doc’s facial expression, but Nicole thinks the way he’s standing looks smug. As she watches, he tucks a folded paper into his breast pocket.

The Revenant’s movements are quick and angry as he kicks up the kickstand on a motorcycle. He’s roaring away from the house, and Nicole gives the order to River — _quick, in the air_ — but River’s already kicking off from the ground, wings silent in the darkness.

River tracks the motorcycle while Nicole relays positions to Waverly, and Waverly relays positions to Wynonna and Doc as they give the motorcycle time to get a lead and then begin to follow.

They’ve tracked the Revenant and his motorcycle into town and River’s trying to stay hidden above the streetlights when there’s a knock at the window of the Jeep.

Nicole jumps, opening her eyes and grabbing the gun. 

Doc spreads his hands out. “I merely intended to request a ride with you ladies.”

“Don’t do that,” Nicole says. Her heart’s racing. She puts her gun back in its holster and closes her eyes again to link with River. The dragon's still got the motorcycle in her sights, and through her eyes, Nicole can see Dolls and Wynonna, not far behind.

Doc opens the Jeep’s back door and gets in. 

“How was the game?” Waverly asks.

“It was most profitable,” Doc says. Nicole can’t see his face — she’s still focusing through River’s eyes, in case Dolls and Wynonna lose the Revenant. 

Doc sounds smug, and Waverly starts asking him questions about the game. But just then, the Revenant pulls his motorcycle into a back alley behind Main Street. River lands, lightly, on a building along the alley, looking down.

“Hey,” Nicole says. “Something’s happening.”

As she watches from above through River’s eyes, the Revenant gets off the motorcycle. Stands in the alley.

There’s a flash like lightning, and the Revenant disappears.

Nicole blinks her human eyes, but River’s sight is still clear. The Revenant is gone.

* * *

“It’s not possible,” Wynonna insists.

They’re all at Black Badge. Dolls and Wynonna spent the night searching the alleyway, looking for any clue. A witch’s fetish, or markings on the buildings, or a secret passage — Dolls even dragged out a radar unit to scan for cavities in the alleyway. Nothing.

It’s morning now, and everyone’s exhausted and fractious and Nicole’s starting to feel like they don’t actually believe her. (River, at least, is back at the Homestead, sleeping with a stomach full of liver. Lucky River.)

“Not possible as compared to what?” Waverly asks, through a donut. “Dragons? Curses? Demons?”

“I refuse to allow the Revenants to teleport,” Wynonna says. “This is unacceptable.”

“Go tell them that,” Dolls says.

Wynonna wrinkles her nose at him. “Sure. I’ll just hop on down to that secret hide-out they’re using. The one Black Badge can’t find.”

Dolls gives her one of his looks and then turns back to Nicole.

They’ve asked Nicole about all of the details a hundred times over. Were there any reflective surfaces around? (No.) What color was the light? (White, probably, or maybe a pale color, but if it had any color, River couldn’t tell. Nicole’s not sure anymore.) Did the Revenant run away really fast instead of disappearing? (No.) Is she sure there weren’t any mine tunnels or other escape hatches? (Yes. And anyway, Dolls and Doc and Wynonna searched the area where the Revenant disappeared.)

“I think we have two possibilities here,” Dolls says. “First, we have a Revenant who can teleport. That’s not without precedent.” 

“Bobo was a telekinetic,” Wynonna says. 

Dolls gives her that flat look, the one that says that Black Badge has seen some shit, even compared to the people of Purgatory, and then he keeps talking. “Second, we have another witch.”

Wynonna doesn’t look convinced. “We didn’t find a fetish.”

“They don’t always need one,” Dolls says. 

Wynonna stares at him, and then takes another donut. “I don’t like either of those options.”

Dolls ignores this. “Waverly, you’re on research. We need to figure out if a witch could provide long-distance teleportation like Haught described. Haught, you’re on weird duty. Let us know if anything else comes over the wire.”

Nicole nods. It’s her usual Black Badge duty these days — well, that and providing dragon-assisted tailing services.

She and Waverly turn to leave Black Badge. Wynonna is still complaining to Dolls behind them.

* * *

That night, Waverly makes a sausage and spinach quiche for dinner, which Wynonna initially scrunches her nose up at but then ends up devouring, spinach and all.

They’re not talking about the Revenant. It’s a touchy subject. Wynonna’s curse — the Earp curse — can only be lifted if all seventy-seven Revenants are dead, and right now, the Revenants seem to be trying to run out the clock. Wynonna’s mortal, and they’re — not.

Sometimes Nicole wonders if that’s their game here. Stay hidden as long as possible, until Wynonna’s strength has failed. 

Or maybe they’re hiding because they have a plan.

She shivers and Waverly looks across the table at her, and Nicole shakes her head. It’s not productive to talk about, not really. Better to let Wynonna eat some vegetables for a change and wait for Doc to come home from wherever the hell he’s been keeping himself these days.

Nicole goes out to spend some time with River after dinner. River catches some of her own food now, but she still likes liver, and Nicole and Waverly still buy it for her. 

It’s dark out, and cold, but wherever River is ends up being the warmest place at the Homestead. Nicole runs her cold fingers over River’s scales and they’re warmed. 

River noses at Nicole’s shoulder once she’s done eating, and sends Nicole a feeling of worry.

Nicole runs her fingers under the dragon’s chin. “It’s okay,” she says, and tries to send River feelings of reassurance. Feelings of home.

It’s just another bump on the road to breaking the curse. Nothing the Earps haven’t seen before.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in case anyone noticed and is wondering: this went from three chapters to four when the final chapter got longer than expected and got split in two. I still plan to finish posting next week as planned. Chapter Three will go up next Sunday and Chapter Four will follow on Monday.

Nicole still feels like she needs to talk to Wynonna about moving into the Homestead. She asks her about it one evening after dinner.

They’re bundled up in blankets and watching the fire in the fire pit. River’s asleep beyond the fire, and Nicole can see the glowing coals reflected in her scales. Waverly’s inside, because even though she cooked, she insisted on washing the dishes. Maybe because she knows that Nicole wants to ask Wynonna alone — without Waverly there to give her little-sister eyes. 

“So,” Nicole says, feeling nervous. “Uh, I wanted to talk to you.”

Wynonna looks over in the darkness. “About?”

“My lease is up,” Nicole says.

“So?”

It’s too dark to see Wynonna’s face, and Nicole’s wishing she had started this conversation inside, where she had maybe a chance of reading her. “So I… didn’t want to just move in without discussing it with you. And Waverly.”

Wynonna’s quiet for a moment. “Dude, don’t you already live here?”

“Uh.”

“Yeah, you moved your dresser in back in, like, April,” Wynonna says. “Wait, you’ve had an apartment this entire time?”

“Uh, yeah,” Nicole says.

“Does your apartment have a washer?” Wynonna asks. “Is that why you always have clean laundry?”

“It’s a junior studio,” Nicole says. Her apartment is — was? — pretty crappy. “I have to go to the laundromat just like you.”

Wynonna flops back in her chair. “Okay. As long as you weren’t holding out on me.”

“So….” Nicole’s not sure what to say. “So you’re okay if I move in here?”

“I still think you moved in back in April,” Wynonna says. “But if you want to, like, make it official or whatever. Waverly knows, right?”

“Of course Waverly knows,” Nicole says. “But — you don’t mind?”

“Of course I don’t mind,” Wynonna says. “Don’t think I forget about you protecting Waverly.” She stares off into the distance. “You’re pretty cool, Haught. I’m glad you guys found each other.”

For Wynonna, that’s pretty sappy. Nicole smiles and stares off into the distance herself.

* * *

After that, it’s just a jumble of paperwork and address changes and finding a time to steal Gus’s truck from Wynonna for the day.

Nicole heads over to the old apartment after work one evening, to pack up, but when she gets there, she realizes that Wynonna’s right. Nicole brought a bunch of liquor boxes, scavenged from out back behind Shorty’s, but the apartment doesn’t have enough stuff left to fill them.

All her clothing is at the Homestead. Most of her stuff. The apartment’s just storing Calamity Jane’s broken-down cat tree, some crap IKEA furniture Nicole bought in the big city when she was moving in, and an Expedit shelving unit with enough books to fill two of the cartons.

“I guess I already did move,” Nicole says to herself, looking around.

That Sunday, Waverly joins her at the apartment and they sort which stuff goes to the Homestead and which stuff doesn’t need to. Most of Nicole’s furniture is crap, and the Homestead already has end tables and bed frames, so they load up the truck and the first load goes to the thrift store outside of town. 

They pack the mattress into the truck, along with Nicole’s boxes, to bring back to the Homestead — Waverly’s mattress isn’t bad, but maybe Doc wants to trade up. Or maybe one of these days Wynonna will stop sleeping on the couch.

Once the truck’s loaded, Waverly breaks out cleaning equipment and starts wiping down everything. “I don’t want you to lose your deposit,” she says.

The apartment’s crappy enough that there wasn’t a deposit, but Nicole grabs the broom Waverly brought and starts sweeping anyway, because why not. It’s a tiny apartment, so it’s gleaming in no time, the sun reflecting off the wood floors and the cracked walls.

“Are you going to miss it?” Waverly asks, looking around.

Nicole looks around. It looks bigger without the furniture, but….

“No,” she says. She takes her cell phone out of her pocket and puts her arm around Waverly and takes a selfie of them, standing in front of the window, which looks out onto one of Purgatory’s only side streets.

“I’m not going to miss it,” Nicole says, and kisses Waverly on the temple. “You’re the one who made all of the good memories for me here.”

* * *

Moving in Nicole’s stuff kicks Waverly off on a massive cleaning and overhaul of the Homestead’s cupboards and closets. She starts in the kitchen, where she sorts through all the kitchen tools and boxes up the extras.

“Do you care if we keep our cake tins instead of yours?” she asks one evening, from under the sink cupboard.

“I didn’t know I had cake tins,” Nicole says. She’s not sure what a cake tin is. Do you store cake in it, or cook cake in it, or what?

Waverly waves some battered pans at her. “Yours are disposable.” Then she stands up, looking worried. “Wait, I don’t mean your stuff is disposable! I just mean your pans are the disposable type of pan. Not your stuff. I promise.”

Nicole grins. She’s working on paperwork, or she’d get up and distract Waverly from the kitchen crap. “I hereby grant you the right to do anything you want to my kitchen stuff. Store it, donate it, give it to Doc for target practice….” She stops and looks down at her mug from the Police Academy, which is full of mulled cider. Waverly’s been experimenting. “Except for this mug. I like this mug.”

There’s a series of crashing and banging noises while Waverly pulls and sorts pans. Finally, her head pops up over the table again.

“How’s the cider?”

“It’s delicious,” Nicole says. It’s got cinnamon and cloves and orange peel and she’s pretty sure Waverly added some other spices Nicole can’t place.

Waverly pulls three boxes from their combined kitchen stuff. Two boxes go to the thrift store, and she tries to find room for a third in one of the upstairs closets. (Not Willa’s closet. Waverly’s not going in there, for a variety of reasons, mostly involving the fact that she and Nicole are both pretty sure Wynonna wants to sort through Willa’s old room herself, once she gets the nerve.)

Exploring the upstairs closets leads to cleaning out the upstairs closets, which means another trip to the thrift store and the dump.

“Can you take these out to Doc?” Waverly asks a few days later. It’s afternoon — Nicole’s not on shift yet and Wynonna and Dolls are doing another one of their witch hunts, for the thus-far-hypothetical witch who might have used a teleportation spell on that Revenant.

Nicole looks down at Waverly’s arms, which are loaded with old blankets.

“You think he needs those?” she asks.

“It’s the barn,” Waverly says. “Probably gets cold.”

“Sure,” Nicole says, grabbing them from her. 

Waverly’s not wrong. It’s getting cold outside. Nicole’s still not used to fall having this kind of bite. She doesn’t throw on her coat, since she’s hardly going to be outside, but she regrets it when the wind starts making her shiver.

When she gets to the barn, she knocks on the door as best she can with her arms full of blankets, and then swings it open.

“Doc?”

He’s sitting on his bed, staring at the wall of the barn, which is covered in maps.

Nicole recognizes a few of them. There’s a bunch of NRCan and USGS topographic maps, but she also sees old county maps and what look like pages torn from an atlas, and geological maps and road maps, and even the sepia-colored “Trails To Earp Country” heritage map that the local business alliance put out a few years back. Nicole sometimes sees Earper tourists holding it. 

_Maybe Doc won it in one of his poker games,_ Nicole thinks. But that doesn’t explain the rest of the maps. Or the scrawled notes.

“Why are you here?” Doc asks, roughly, without the usual charm he puts on for company.

“Waverly thought you might need blankets,” Nicole says. She puts her armload down at the end of his bed. “Uh… what’s going on here?”

Doc stares at her, and Nicole can practically _hear_ him trying to come up with an explanation she’ll buy. What she can’t figure out is why he’d need one.

“Can you agree not to tell anyone else?” Doc asks. “On your word as a Deputy?”

“You know I can’t agree to that,” Nicole says. She doesn’t think he meant her to, either. “What’s going on?”

“It’s, ah….” Doc trails off, takes a look behind himself at his maps. “What does it look like?”

It looks like he’s tracking a serial killer. But that can’t be it, because all the serial killers they’re currently tracking are Revenants, and all of those maps are down at the station. “I have no idea,” Nicole says, honestly.

“I may have run across something that could be considered a lead,” Doc says. “But I know Marshall Dolls fully believes his witch theory, and hypothetically speaking, I may have decided not to distract things.”

“A lead to where the Revenants are?” Nicole asks.

Doc looks back at the maps again, and then at Nicole. “Can you keep a secret, Officer Haught?”

“It’s Black Badge Deputy Haught,” Nicole says. “And no. If you’ve got a real lead, we need to tell Wynonna. And Dolls.”

“Then let’s just say I’m looking for something,” Doc says. “Something I might have stumbled across many years ago.”

And no matter how much Nicole presses him, he won’t say anything else.

The next time Nicole goes out to the barn, the maps have disappeared. All that’s left is the holes in the rough wood of the walls from his thumbtacks.

* * *

Doc’s right about one thing. Wynonna and Dolls are focused on the witch theory.

Wynonna is all for barging out to the salt flats, to make sure Constance Clootie is staying put. But Dolls argues for caution.

“The location of the Stone Witch may be one of the new witch’s goals in Purgatory,” he says at one of their Black Badge planning meetings. “We need to find a way to confirm her presence without potentially alerting others to her location.”

It comes down to Nicole and River in the end. River does a high fly-over, with the salt flats just one location among many, so anyone watching wouldn’t be able to track their interest back to a specific location. 

The Stone Witch is still there. Still trapped. Nicole wishes she didn’t have those images in her head, because even though dragon sight, even from 200 feet above the ground, it’s… not something she likes to think about.

But the witch is still there.

* * *

Dolls is sending Waverly further and further away to research witches. She's well past the information Black Badge is willing to put on a computer. Now she’s driving out of the Ghost River Triangle entirely, beyond the big city, over the border even, chasing books that might have a hint about what it is they’re facing.

Nicole’s the first one home one evening, which doesn’t usually happen. She spends some time with River, letting the dragon’s scales warm her hands while the dragon sends her images of Purgatory from above and of the prey she scared over on a ridge west of the Homestead. 

Nicole watches, sending back her own images: paperwork, Sheriff Nedley glowering from his desk, a partly-squashed sandwich from Shorty’s for lunch.

Waverly’s still not back, so Nicole heads inside once it’s dark out, to start the fires and maybe start dinner.

Calamity Jane winds around Nicole’s ankles as soon as she steps inside, so she gets the cat a plate of stinky wet food and a fresh bowl of water before dealing with the fire. There’s a ritual to the wood stove that Nicole’s still learning: poking the coals, piling up logs and opening the draft to help them catch. Once the fire’s running hot, she tamps down the draft and goes to the kitchen to look into dinner. 

There’s a note on the counter — MAKE IT YOURSELF! LOVE YOU — along with a package of spaghetti and a jar of pre-made sauce. Waverly’s even left the big pot on the stove, and the colander in the sink, and Nicole smiles.

By the time Waverly gets home, the spaghetti’s on the table and covered in sauce. Nicole even manages to take some bread out of the freezer to make garlic bread, and pull together some salad from stuff hanging around the fridge.

“Sorry about sticking you with dinner,” Waverly says, dropping her coat over one of the chairs and shivering. “Damn. Why does it have to get cold this early?”

“So it feels warm when you come inside,” Nicole says. She slides the garlic bread onto the table and hugs Waverly, letting her nose rest against Waverly’s hair, smelling the smell that’s Waverly’s conditioner and Waverly’s weirdo environmentally-safe laundry detergent she buys in the big city and, well, Waverly.

“So where did they have you today?” Nicole asks.

Waverly wrinkles her nose. “Way the hell outside of town,” she says. “Library on the other side of the border.”

“You’d think Black Badge Division could figure out interlibrary loan.”

“Not for these books,” Waverly says. “Some of them have to be chained to the shelves.”

Nicole stares at her, but she doesn’t seem to be joking. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Waverly shivers again, and then sits down.

Nicole always assumed that Waverly had the safest job out of any of them, but… “Are they safe to read?”

“The parts I’m reading are,” Waverly says, but she’s not meeting Nicole’s eyes. 

By the time Wynonna gets home, the pasta’s congealed and cold, but she dishes herself up a plate anyway and sits down at the table with her beer.

“We do have a microwave,” Waverly says, sitting down across from her, but Wynonna waves her off and keeps eating.

“Long day,” she says, once she looks up for air. “Dolls is worried about this one.”

Nicole nods. They all are. Wherever the Revenants are hiding, they’ve got assistance. 

And they may be waiting for something. Whatever a Revenant would wait for — that’s a scary thought. One Nicole’s been trying not to think about.

From outside, River sends Nicole a reassuring feeling, along with an image of herself going after one of the Revenants from the most recent attack on the Homestead. 

Nicole laughs. “River,” she says, when Wynonna and Waverly look over at her. “Sorry.”

“So where’s Doc?” Wynonna asks. 

“He didn’t come,” Nicole says, and she’s suddenly wondering herself. 

It’s not that Doc hasn’t missed dinner before. He’s his own man, and he’s made it pretty clear that he doesn’t intend on being tracked by anyone. He disappeared for three days once and came back with a bunch of questions about modern lighting methods and Elvis. Waverly was convinced he’d hitchhiked down to Vegas.

But — usually he tells Wynonna _something_ before he heads off. Maybe not the rest of them. But usually Wynonna knows.

Nicole glances at Waverly and Wynonna. Wynonna doesn’t look worried. Waverly does, a little, but eventually she shrugs and gets up to grab some cookies from the cupboard.

* * *

They start to worry the next morning.

When Nicole goes out to get breakfast for River, the barn’s cold. Doc’s moved an old stove out there, and it’s cold. Doc might have stumbled home drunk and late, but he’s usually pretty good about lighting a fire.

“I’m worried about Doc,” Nicole says, coming back into the kitchen and rubbing her hands together to warm them up.  

“He’s still not back?” Waverly’s sitting at the table. She looks worried. “That’s not like him.”

Wynonna stares at them like they’ve lost the plot. “He’s _Doc Holliday,_ ” she says.

“I’m still worried,” Waverly says.

Nicole pours herself another mug of coffee and sits down. “Did he say anything about going away?”

“No,” Wynonna says. She shovels a spoonful of frosted cereal into her mouth and keeps talking. “But he never does.”

“Yeah, but usually when he disappears, it’s because he’s angry about something,” Waverly says. “Was he angry about anything?”

“How would I know?” Wynonna takes a swig of coffee. “Look, I really think you guys are overreacting. Maybe he met someone. Maybe he found a lead. Maybe he just… took off. He’ll be back. He always is.”

Nicole shrugs, and they let it drop. 

It’s Saturday, but Revenants don’t take the day off, so Wynonna’s heading down to the station to meet Dolls and talk over the latest satellite photos. Something about a disturbance out east of town. Now that they know the Revenants might be able to teleport, Dolls has widened their search area to parts of the Triangle without roads or even trails. Nicole hasn’t been brought in on all the details yet. 

Once Wynonna leaves, Waverly turns to look at Nicole. “I’m still worried,” she says.

“Wynonna’s probably right,” Nicole says. “He is immortal.”

“Ish,” Waverly says, waggling her hand. “Immortal-ish.”

“Yeah.” 

They stare at each other across the table, and Nicole wonders if Waverly’s thinking about the last time Doc got kidnapped, at the Solstice. Because that’s definitely what Nicole’s thinking about.

“We should go look,” Nicole says, just as Waverly says “I’m still worried.”

They leave the breakfast dishes in the sink and head out to the barn. It’s just like it was earlier: cold, dark. Doc’s bed is neatly made, which never fails to amuse Nicole, the fact that one of the greatest gunslingers of the Old West always makes his bed in the morning. 

Nicole’s told Waverly about the maps. “Maybe he’s off looking for something,” she says. 

“Or someone managed to get him out looking for something,” Waverly says. “We have to search this place, don’t we?”

Nicole’s been part of search teams before, serving warrants and searching through someone else’s life. It doesn’t get any more comfortable because she’s searching the barn of someone she hangs out with. Someone who’s part of their messed-up little family.

Waverly takes the space above, up on the boards slung carelessly across the barn’s rafters, while Nicole carefully sorts the clothing in Doc’s trunk, picks up and shakes out his bedding, and pokes through the straw left on the floor, looking for anything. Anything at all.

They find a trove of maps behind a loose board in the barn’s siding, hidden between the outer and inner boards. All the maps Nicole can remember seeing, that time she brought the blankets out to Doc.

And one more.

It’s old, hand-drawn on something that probably isn’t parchment, but looks like it. There’s a landmark Nicole thinks she’s seen before, and then a set of jumbled steps and numbers that look like they were set down by a drunken prospector. Nicole can’t read the writing along the edges — Cyrillic, maybe? She’s not sure.

“Oh, that idiot,” Waverly says, with feeling, as she studies the map.

“What is it?”

“He’s going after Ivar’s treasure.”


	3. Chapter 3

Nicole’s heard treasure stories of the Old West before.

Most of them take place further south, by Tombstone and Silver City, the cities of the Gold Rush, in lands carved by rivers into mesas and arroyos, in canyons that cut through the ground and reveal the things left behind.

The land around Purgatory was carved by glacial ice, Nature’s sharper knife, but the stories are the same. Treasures unimaginable, found or hidden, or lost out in the merciless wasteland beyond the towns and cities. 

The way Waverly tells the story of Ivar’s treasure, nobody was really sure which treasure he found. Some stories say he found the remains of a lost Spanish mule train, carrying treasure for the Crown, although surely Purgatory is too far north for this. Others say that a fur trapper brought gold to build a home for his bride, but went mad and buried the treasure up in the hills when she left him for another man. Still others say the geological maps are wrong, and Ivar found an outcropping of pure gold.

Wherever his treasure came from, the stories agree that Ivar came into town one day with his saddlebags loaded down with pure gold. He told his best friend that there was more where the gold had come from, much more. He then proceeded to partake in a three day binge on wine, women, and cards before being shot by someone who took offense at the way Ivar was monopolizing his favorite table at the saloon that would eventually become Shorty’s.

Wyatt Earp would hunt down Ivar's killer, and bring him to justice. But with Ivar dead, the treasure was gone.

Or maybe not.

* * *

“This has to be a fake,” Waverly says, as she studies the map. “Someone set Doc up.”

“Or it’s real, and someone still set Doc up,” Nicole says. But she’s remembering the poker game, and Doc walking out of the house, tucking something into his jacket. 

Maybe the Revenant wasn’t actually angry Doc beat him. Maybe that was the plan all along.

They’ve brought all the maps inside, to the Homestead, but it’s the hand-drawn map that has their attention. Waverly’s translated the Russian and confirmed it: this map claims to be by a prospector named Ivar, who found gold in the hills outside Purgatory.

One of the features drawn on the map is familiar to Nicole: a twisted peak, made of layers of rock crushed into a distinctive shape. 

“I think I’ve seen that,” Nicole says, keeping her finger off the surface of the map. “Out west of town.”

Waverly gives her an unimpressed look. “You know this is fake, right? It has to be.”

“So?” Nicole reaches past her to grab one of the topographic maps. “Even if it’s fake, they were sending Doc somewhere, right?”

“Yeah,” Waverly says. She looks worried. “Good point.”

Nicole studies the topographic map, and then tries to send an image of the peak to River. The dragon’s confused, at first, but once she realizes what Nicole’s after, she sends back her own image — sharper, clearer, and from above. 

It’s where Nicole remembered.

“I think I know where we start,” Nicole says.

Waverly shakes her head. “We start at Black Badge. We need equipment. And I’m sending Wynonna and Dolls a picture of the map, like, now.”

* * *

When Waverly and Nicole get to the Black Badge office, Wynonna and Dolls have already left on a hunt for the Revenants. They’ve left approximate coordinates for where they’re going, but it’s up in the mountains, away from where Waverly and Nicole are going, and it’s way out of cell phone range.

“They’ll get my text once they get back,” Waverly says.

Nicole looks at her. It doesn’t feel safe, but… Wynonna and Dolls will get the text once they’re back. And Waverly and Nicole have their own backup. They’ve got River. A fire-breathing dragon gives a woman a certain level of confidence.

And it’s not like Revenants are the only explanation for why Doc's gone missing. There’s plenty of ways to die up in the mountains; Revenants are just the showiest. A broken ankle, exposure — Doc’s got more endurance than a normal man, but Nicole suspects a fall down a cliff face could kill him just as sure as it would a regular human. 

They grab the spare packs from the supply area and Nicole insists on checking them over before they leave. Water, emergency supplies, belaying equipment, rope. Flashlights. Nicole checks the batteries and hopes like hell that they won’t need them.

The starting point of the map is a peak that draws a few tourists, so there’s a trail up to the base. By the time they get there, the sun’s already high in the sky. They have daylight left, but not as much as Nicole would like.

“Let’s start,” Waverly says, and pulls the map out.

Looking at the map in the barn made this look easy. So many feet this way, so many feet that way — all nice and flat and easy.

But they’re in the mountains now. Nicole measures off sixty feet with a laser sight and ends up at a cliff face, ten feet short.

“They wouldn’t have measured it that way,” Waverly says. “They probably would have paced the distance off.”

Pacing, the most inaccurate of distance measuring techniques. “Do we know how tall Ivar was?” Nicole asks. 

They don’t, but Waverly’s pretty short compared to most men back in the 1800s, so they figure Nicole’s the closer of the two of them. She paces the distances off carefully, counting with her left foot, until they find themselves in a tiny crevasse.

“Probably cut by the glaciers,” Waverly says, looking up at the crevasse’s walls with interest.

They’re in shadow, and the sun’s still going down. 

“Let’s see if he’s here,” Nicole says. She sends a reassuring thought to River, with a mental image of where they are. River’s on the next peak over, avoiding the tourists.

It’s harder than usual, sending the image, listening for the dragon’s response. Nicole shrugs it off. They’re all under stress.

Waverly yells Doc’s name. They listen, but don’t hear anything.

At the back of the crevasse, Waverly finds a narrow opening behind one of the boulders. “I think this is it,” she says. She’s pale. 

“Let me take the lead,” Nicole says, and Waverly scrunches her nose up at her and looks so much like Wynonna for a moment — but she nods. Nicole shrugs her pack off to push through the gap. 

It’s a long struggle through narrow walls, and then the narrow passge opens out into a wide space. Nicole forgot her flashlight, but when she takes her cell phone out, the light fades into a cavern. She can’t see the walls. 

It’s also quiet. “Doc?” Nicole says, experimentally.

“Haught?” 

His voice is weak, and it’s coming from far below her.

“Doc? Where are you?”

“You need to get out of here,” he says, urgently.

“We came to help you,” Nicole says. “Where are you? What happened?”

“You need to run.” Doc just says it, flat. Doesn’t explain why.

Nicole can’t see him and can’t see the cavern and she doesn’t have ropes — “It’s okay,” she says, “we brought supplies. I’m going to leave but I’ll be back, okay? With ropes. And lights. We’re going to get you out of here.”

She traces her path back through the crevasse, between tight walls of granite. Sending an image of Doc to River — not that she could see him. But River’s happy to know he’s found. Her emotion fades in and out as Nicole listens, like cell phone interference.

“Waverly?” Nicole gets to the mouth of the crevasse, and the light’s a relief.

But the woman standing at the end of the crevasse isn’t Waverly. Nicole’s never seen her before. She’s backlit by the sun, and her long, ashy blonde hair tangles with the breeze. 

“Ah,” the woman says. “And what have we here?”

The woman waves a hand, says a few words Nicole can’t make out, and Nicole’s frozen against the rock, motionless like a sparrow frozen by the sight of a hawk. She can hardly breathe. Can’t reach for her gun. Her pack’s in front of her, ten feet away. It might as well be a mile.

“Who are you?” Nicole asks, rasping out the words on shortened breath.

“Consorting with Holliday,” the woman says. “Did you think you came to rescue him?”

Nicole’s heart is beating in her throat. She tries to look out of her peripheral vision, without moving her eyes, without letting the woman (the witch?) realize that she’s looking for someone. Nicole’s pack’s there, but not Waverly’s. Waverly’s nowhere to be seen, in fact. _Which could mean the woman already has her, or_ —

Nicole keeps her eyes steady, not looking around. Not looking for Waverly. In her head, she’s screaming for River, while the dragon’s worry fades in and out, crackling like static.

“I’m afraid that’s not in the cards for you, my dear,” the woman says, and she opens her fist.

The wind’s like a blow, pushing her back through the granite walls of the crevasse, scraping her skin. Nicole has time to think _Find Waverly_ at River before everything cuts out.

* * *

Nicole’s face is against sand, and her left ankle is throbbing.

She tries to send to River. Nothing. Either the woman — the witch — is blocking her, or… Nicole tries not to think about the _or_. 

“Doc?” Her voice cracks.

His voice comes from near by, from the darkness. “I told you to run.”

“Yeah, well.” Nicole tries sitting up. She’s feeling battered, but apart from the ankle, she seems okay. Apart from being in the dark. And in a cave. “Who the hell was that?”

“Patience Cartwright,” Doc says.

Nicole can’t place it. “Who?”

“You might know her better as the Stone Witch’s sister,” Doc says. 

The Stone Witch. Nicole’s heard Waverly’s stories. She tries not to think about Waverly out there, about River out there. Hopes they found a way to hide. 

“Okay,” Nicole says, instead. Because she’s not going to panic. Panic doesn’t help anyone. “So we figure out a way out of here.”

“There is no way,” Doc says. “She’s going to leave us here.” He’s got the best poker face on either side of the border, but Nicole can hear that he’s panicking down here, and when Nicole thinks about what Waverly told her about where Doc was for the past hundred years or so, she realizes why.

_Dark, tight, enclosed space. Underground. Just like the well._

“Deep breaths,” Nicole says. She feels in her pocket for her cell phone, pulls it out, but when she brushes her finger across the screen, the phone doesn’t respond. She can feel the cracks in the glass.

“Okay,” Nicole says. “Do you have your cell?”

“My — my what?”

“Your telephone,” Nicole says. “The one Waverly gave you for emergencies.” Not that it would have done him any good up here; they were already out of cell range before the witch trapped them under a mountain. Assuming Waverly's still okay out there, she's going to have to hike a ways before she can call Wynonna and Doc… unless it’s dark and Wynonna comes out looking for them, but then the witch might —

 _Deep breaths,_ Nicole reminds herself. “Right,” she says to Doc. “Try flipping it open and pressing one of the buttons.”

Nicole hears Doc flip the phone open, and then there’s light. Dim, faded, blessed light. She can see Doc’s face, terrified and then relaxing, just a bit, as he looks at the phone.

She holds her hand out and he gives it to her, reluctantly.

Almost no battery left. 

“Okay,” Nicole says. “So there’s good news and bad news. The good news is we can try to explore the cave a bit. The bad news is that the battery’s going to run out on your phone soon, so we should probably do it fast.”

Doc’s face goes tight again, but he doesn’t say anything, just takes the phone when Nicole hands it back to him.

“Are you hurt?” Nicole asks. 

“The witch was quite careful with my physical requirements,” Doc said. “I believe….” He trails off, like there’s something he’s not telling her.

There’s usually something Doc’s not telling them. But right now, they have other priorities. Nicole runs her hand down her calf. Her ankle’s still throbbing. She’s also going to be a mass of bruises tomorrow _if there is a tomorrow — no, stop thinking like that, Haught_. 

She tries to stand on it, but it’s — yeah, no. Not holding her weight. 

“So why are we here?” Nicole asks. “What does she want?”

“Her sister,” Doc says. 

Nicole stares at him. “Guess we should have figured that one out.”

“What, that someone dead over a century ago would come back?” Doc laughs, but he doesn’t sound like he’s finding it funny. “That never happens.”

“Purgatory,” Nicole says, with feeling, because yeah. It never happens. Except in Purgatory.

Doc helps her to her feet, and they try to explore the cavern, with Nicole hobbling on her ankle and Doc holding the cell phone in front of them. It’s got granite walls, thick. The boulders look like they were split by human hands, but when Nicole asks if it’s a mine shaft, Doc shakes his head.

“Natural. I suspect.”

The entrance to the cavern is ten feet up, maybe. It’s at the top of an overhang. With ropes, it’d be easy enough — Nicole thinks of her pack, outside the cavern, stuffed with water and ropes and energy bars and flashlights. Especially flashlights.

But it’s not doing them any good, thinking about that.

Nicole tries to find a way to climb the wall to the entrance, but her ankle won’t hold her. She falls back to the sandy ground of the cavern.

“I already tried that,” Doc says. He sits down beside her. She can just make him out in the gloom from his dying cell phone.

“I’m sorry you didn’t find a treasure,” Nicole says.

“Oh, we found the right place,” Doc says. “The treasure’s gone, but Ivar hasn’t gone anywhere.”


	4. Chapter 4

Nicole and Doc spend the next few hours on the sand, in the darkness, waiting for any noise from outside the cave. Doc won’t explain what he meant about Ivar not being gone, even though Nicole keeps asking. 

Nicole’s still trying to reach River, but there’s nothing there. Sometimes she thinks she hears something, distant, far away — so far away that she has to be imagining it, she reluctantly decides.

_It’s the granite_ , she tells herself. Dolls is always talking about the bedrock at the Homestead and how it affects magic. Surely some rocks could block magic. It has to be the granite.

She’s not letting herself think about the other possibilities. 

It’s been hours when Nicole sees a flare of light. Doc looks up and shuts the cell phone. There’s an expression of resignation on his face, like he’s been through this before. 

The light isn’t from the mouth of the cavern. Instead, a glowing ball of light forms itself into the shape of a man. He’s wearing prospector clothes, and carrying a pickaxe. 

He’s also hunched over something, his feet disappearing into the sand at the bottom of the cavern. 

“Can he see us?” Nicole breathes. 

“He hasn’t yet,” Doc says. He’s got his back against one of the granite walls. “I’m… I’m glad you see him too.”

“What is he?”

“I have no idea,” Doc says. “But I can tell you who.”

“Ivar,” Nicole says, and then immediately regrets it — what if the spirit’s name draws his attention? But the ghost doesn’t seem to notice.

“This is what happened yesterday,” Doc says. “He seems to be repeating his motions.”

As they watch, the ghost of Ivar works at a cavern floor they can’t see. He picks something up and then walks towards one of the cavern’s walls, where he disappears into the granite. The light fades behind him.

“Did you see that?” Nicole asks.

“Ghost River Triangle.” Doc says it like it’s an explanation for just about anything weird.

“No,” Nicole says, “did you see where he went?” Into the wall. There has to be a space back there.

She puts her hand out and Doc helps her up. They limp across the sand in the darkness.

When they explored this area by cell phone light, the wall looked solid. But now, feeling with her hands — Nicole can feel something.

The boulder’s been balanced to hide something. Nicole pushes at it, and Doc makes a noise of surprise as it shifts, revealing — something. A space, behind the rock.

Ivar’s gone. They’re still in the dark. But there’s something back here — Nicole can feel it in the fresh taste of the air flowing past her.

“Cell phone?”

Doc pulls it out, and by the light of the fading cell, they inspect the inside. There’s a cache of tools — the pickaxe they saw Ivar’s spirit carrying, now rusty and old, and a coil of rope that shreds when Doc grabs it.

“We may not need it,” Nicole says, nodding to the area beyond the cell phone’s light.

Doc puts the pickaxe in his belt, and they continue on. Slowly — so slowly. Nicole can’t let them fall into another hole. They move by the light of the dying cell phone, at the speed of a throbbing ankle. 

The exit is further down the valley, so narrow you wouldn’t see it unless you were just at the edge of the cliff face. Nicole scrapes her hands trying to slip past.

And then they’re out — in the air and even though it’s full night, the light from the stars is the most glorious thing Nicole has seen.

_River_ , she thinks, trying to reach the dragon, and there’s a burst of joy, and then the connection fades out.

* * *

River is alive, and if the burst of images Nicole receives from her once she moves away from the granite walls is accurate, so is Waverly. River sends her images of Waverly moving away from the witch — hiding from the witch, and then running back down the path to the Jeep when the witch didn't leave the mouth of the cavern.

River didn’t follow her. River waited for the witch to leave, and then tried to find Nicole. But with the granite blocking Nicole, and the crevasses in the rock too small for a dragon to explore, she couldn’t.

A few minutes later, River lands next to them. Doc’s found Nicole’s pack, abandoned back by the first entrance to the cave. She’s got a jacket in there, and she pulls it on, but it’s the warmth of River’s body beside her that helps ease her shivers. She slides her gun into her waistband.

“I wish you could tell Waverly we’re okay,” Nicole says, stroking her hands over River’s warm scales. “I can tell you we’re okay, but you can’t tell anything to Waverly.”

River sends another image of Waverly in the Jeep, driving, determined, and Nicole feels a wash of relief that Waverly’s alive. And then she starts worrying. What if Waverly can’t find Wynonna and Dolls? What if Waverly decides to come back and face the witch on her own? The three of them don't have the equipment.

Doc finds an elastic bandage in the pack and helps Nicole wrap her ankle. It looks way worse out here, by the light of the flashlight. It’s swollen like a melon, and Nicole grits her teeth when Doc starts gently probing it with his fingers. 

“Sprain,” he says, and Nicole looks up in surprise.

“Doc’s not just a nickname,” he says, and smiles. “Now you should probably still go get those fancy look-inside pictures to be sure, but I think this will heal just fine if you stay off it.”

Stay off it. Yeah. Nicole digs through the medical kit again and finds a tiny pack of ibuprofen and a bottle of water — swallows down a couple pills and hands the bottle to Doc. It’s not going to fix anything but maybe it’ll start knocking down the inflammation. Blunt some of the pain from her bruises. 

They sit a bit longer, while Doc eats three energy bars from the pack.

The moon rises and sheds a wan, silvery light over the peak.

“We should move,” Nicole says, reluctantly. 

“You’re sure you can?” Doc asks. 

Nicole grits her teeth and nods. She’s not sure if she can get down the trail. But she’s sure she doesn’t want to wait around to meet the witch again. 

With Doc’s help, she stands, and they start limping down the trail. River takes off and flies above them, a dark shadow against the moon.

* * *

They move slowly. Nicole’s ankle still protests at every step, and the flashlights can only do so much to illuminate rocks and roots on the trail.

Halfway back, Nicole stumbles when a vision from River overwhelms her view of the trail.

“They’re back,” she says to Doc, her voice low. “Waverly, and she brought Dolls and Wynonna with her.”

They meet the others on the trail. Waverly gaps when she sees Nicole, and then runs forward and throws her arms around her neck. “Nicole, oh God, I thought you were dead.”

“I’m fine,” Nicole says, but the tears in her voice maybe aren’t as convincing as she’d hoped. “How did you —”

“I hid behind one of the rocks,” Waverly says. “I saw her push you back but I — I had to….” She trails off and hugs Nicole tighter, so tight she can’t breathe properly.

Nicole doesn’t care, just leans on Waverly, lets her carry the weight. Holds her tighter in return.

Doc’s talking with Wynonna and Dolls, in low voices, filling them in on where he’s been, on the crevasse, on the witch. Dolls is carrying an enormous pack. Probably the equipment to take down Patience.

“Okay, team,” Dolls says. “Haught, glad you’re okay. Waverly, take Haught to the hospital. Get that ankle looked at. Earp, Holliday, you’re with me.”

* * *

By leaning on Waverly, Nicole makes it down to the Jeep. River’s waiting for them at the corner of the parking lot. Nicole runs her hands over the dragon’s neck scales and scratches under her chin. “You did great,” Nicole tells her.

The X-ray and the doctor at the hospital confirm Doc’s diagnosis: sprained ankle. They re-wrap it and give Nicole crutches and more ibuprofen and instructions to stay off it, keep it elevated. Nicole nods, but she’s only sort of paying attention. Waverly’s sitting in the corner of the treatment area, staring down at her phone like she can force Wynonna to get cell service and tell her what’s going on.

When they get back to the Homestead, Waverly lowers Nicole onto one of the chairs and then sits down next to her. Calamity Jane comes over and looks up at Nicole before jumping up into Nicole’s lap. 

Calamity’s not normally a lap cat. Nicole sinks her hands into the cat’s fur, petting and scratching the back of the cat’s head while Calamity purrs like she knows Nicole’s been injured.

“You can head back,” Nicole says. She pats her crutches. “I’m going to be fine.” Covered in bruises, but fine. 

“Wynonna’s going to be fine too,” Waverly says. “You really think she’s going to let a witch get her?”

Nicole reaches over and takes Waverly’s hand.

* * *

Wynonna doesn’t ket the witch get her.

With Dolls’ equipment, they even manage to capture her. And eventually, with some help from Black Badge, they get the answer to where the Revenants have been hiding.

It’s a remote valley — still inside the Ghost River Triangle, but cut off from the roadways. The only trails in are multi-day hikes. The perfect hiding place for a witch who can provide teleportation in exchange for help avenging her sister, and the Revenants who are willing to help her.

By the time the Black Badge helicopter makes it in to the valley, the Revenants have scattered. But Wynonna and Dolls figure they can’t have gone far. And without the witch leading the Revenants, Black Badge and the Earp Heir may finally have the advantage.

* * *

Doc is the first one back to the Homestead after they capture the witch.

“I’m sorry you didn’t find your treasure,” Waverly says, from the kitchen, where she’s throwing together something that smells delicious and has Nicole’s stomach grumbling.

He looks at her and then takes a coffee mug from the counter and fills it with coffee. Leans back against the counter and takes a sip.

“I understand I have you both to thank for my rescue,” he says. “Wynonna informed me that I was a damn fool not to tell someone.”

Waverly slams a pan down on the stove. Now that she knows everyone’s safe, she’s angry with him. “Damn straight, Holliday.”

“I….” Doc looks down into his mug. “Thank you for the rescue.”

“I couldn’t hear that,” Nicole calls from her chair in the living room. She’s got her foot up on an endtable, and Waverly’s been keeping her supplied with all the coffee and cookies she can consume.

Doc sets the coffee down and looks at her. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Nicole says. “Thank you for helping me down the trail.”

“The least I could do for my rescue team,” Doc says.

Nicole smiles. “I’m sorry you didn’t find your treasure.”

“If you tell me the greatest treasure was here all along, I will not be responsible for my actions, Officer Haught.”

“Black Badge Deputy Haught.” Nicole leans back in her chair.

* * *

Nicole’s ankle means she’s riding a desk at the sheriff’s office. The desk job means a regular schedule, and Waverly insists on driving her in to work every morning. With the witch captured, Waverly’s back to doing her usual research, much closer to home.

It’s a few days later when Nicole goes out to check on River and finds Wynonna feeding her liver.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Wynonna tells the dragon, as she strokes her under the chin. “I can’t have them thinking I’ve gone soft.”

“Too late,” Nicole says, from the fence.

Wynonna turns and scrunches her nose. “Can’t you just… pretend you didn’t see this?”

“You know River’s part of this family,” Nicole says. She’s tempted to pull her new cell phone out of her pocket to take a picture for Waverly. But she can let Wynonna keep her secret, about how she’s gone soft. It’s one of the worst-kept secrets in town.

* * *

It’s early evening, October, and the sun’s just disappeared behind the mountains, leaving the sky a clear blue studded with points of starlight. Nicole’s on the porch at the Homestead, sitting on one of the chairs, staring out into the twilight.

River’s beside her, but the heat from the dragon isn’t enough to offset the chill of the evening. Nicole’s wearing a hat and she’s snuggled down under a wool blanket Waverly found in one of the Homestead’s closets. 

The door slams shut behind Waverly.

“Here,” she says, handing Nicole a mug of something.

Nicole wraps her hands around it. The mug’s warm against her chilled fingers. It smells like spices and apples and something Nicole can’t place. 

“What is this?”

“Hot buttered cider,” Waverly says. She sets her own mug down on the porch and sits down beside Nicole. She’s got an old afghan, which she wraps around herself before picking her mug back up.

Nicole takes a sip. It tastes like the transition between fall and winter — the bite of the spices and the sour of the cider and the warm, oily taste of the butter, promising a long winter ahead.

“It’s definitely interesting,” Nicole says. She’s not sure if she likes it or not.

Waverly’s heard enough of Nicole’s diplomatic responses to her kitchen experiments to translate that. She wrinkles her nose. “Well, it’s something new,” she says. 

“Something warm,” Nicole says. They definitely need that these days.

Waverly takes another sip, and then lets her head fall against Nicole’s shoulder.

“So Doc didn’t find his treasure,” she says.

Nicole nods and tries another sip of the cider. Still overpowering.

“Except this morning,” Waverly says, “he went off with a shovel from the barn. And he left at dawn.”

Nicole sits up. “You think he’s trapped again?”

“He did the same thing yesterday morning and the morning before,” Waverly says. “And he came back just fine.” She shakes her head. “I think he’s still looking for the treasure.”

“Maybe,” Nicole says, leaning back. She thinks about the ghost. The way he stooped down, below the level of the sand in the cave — the sand that might have come in later. 

Maybe the treasure’s still there, under all the sand. Maybe Doc’s digging it out.

“He took the map back.” Nicole takes another sip of the cider. It’s growing on her.

“And he hasn’t been playing tourists down at Shorty’s,” Waverly says. “Nicole, do you really think —”

“Lot of sand in that cave,” Nicole says. And as long as he’s digging it out, he’s not getting her called down to Shorty’s.

“He’d better tell us if he finds anything,” Waverly says, indignant. “We were the ones who rescued him.”

Nicole smiles and puts her arm around Waverly. She leans in to smell Waverly’s hair. 

Doc can mock all he wants. As far as Nicole’s concerned, the real treasure’s been at the Homestead all along.


End file.
